T

he government will offer 79 projects worth a total of US$53.4 billion to investors this year under the public private partnership (PPP) plan to help accelerate infrastructure development, a senior official said.

National Development Planning Minister Armida Alisjahbana said the PPP plan was designed to attract the private sector to participate in the country’s infrastructure development projects.

“Infrastructure is among the most important elements in materializing our plan to accelerate economic growth,” she said in her opening remarks at the PPP Project Plan 2011 book launch at her office in Jakarta.

The book contains explanations of the 79 projects comprising 13 new ready-to-offer projects worth $27.52 billion, 21 priority projects worth $10.38 billion and 45 other projects worth $15.5 billion.

“Despite many problems, we’ve made several progressive steps. This year we will launch 13 ready-to-offer projects, while last year we could only launch five projects,” said Armida.

The 13 projects are the South Banten airport in Banten, which needs an estimated $213.61 million in investment, the expansion of the Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta that needs $1.17 billion, the Tanah Ampo cruise terminal in Bali that needs $28.3 million, the Medan-Kualanamu-Tebing Tinggi toll road in North Sumatera that needs $670.4 million, the Strategic Infrastructure and Regional Development of Sunda Strait that needs $25 billion, the Bandarlampung municipal water supply in Lampung that needs $38 million and the Jakarta-Bekasi-Karawang water supply that needs 189.3 million.

The remaining six projects are the Pondok Gede water supply worth $22.43 million in West Java, the Surakarta water supply project in Central Java worth $6.74 million, the Tukad Unda water supply in Bali worth $43.5 million, the Maros regency water supply in South Sulawesi worth $11.5 million, the Bandung Municipal solid waste management improvement in West Java worth $100 million and the solid waste final disposal and treatment facility in Surakarta, Central Java worth $30 million.

The National Development Planning Deputy Minister, Dedy S. Priatna, reported that to promote the PPP plan the government established several vital institutions including the Indonesia Infrastructure Fund Facilities (IIFF) and PT Sarana Multi Infrastruktur (SMI) to provide project financing and the Indonesia Infrastructure Guarantee Fund (IIGF) to provide government guarantees for infrastructure projects.

“We have also made several efforts to address land acquisition problems. We will soon set up a general service agency [BLU] to provide loans for land acquisitions for 23 toll road projects across the country,” he said.

The government also submitted the draft of the new land acquisition bill to end legal uncertainty over the mechanisms involved in acquiring land for public purposes, Dedy added.

Under the proposed land acquisition law, land owners and investors have only two weeks to resolve their differences over the land acquisition process thereby expediting the acquisition process.

The next breakthrough offered by the proposed law was the establishment of land price caps. Under this mechanism, the government will bear the burden of rising land prices. If the price of a property increases by 150 percent, the investor will pay 110 percent and the government will pay 40 percent.